Assessment
Assessment is a critical part of planning lessons and understanding my students’ progress. I frequently use formative assessments to get feedback not only on students’ learning but also on the effectiveness of my teaching strategies, with the goal of adjusting and improving them accordingly. I give a summative assessment only when I am sure that students have had enough time with the material to perform their best. To get a full picture of each student and accommodate the wide variety of learning styles, I vary my assessment methods while ensuring that the method (selected response, written, performance, personal communication) is a good match for the type of learning target (knowledge, skills, reasoning). Students should feel ownership of their assessments, by being a part of creating them and self-assessing whenever possible.